Railway cars are widely used for transportation of goods and passengers throughout the United States and abroad. Railway cars generally include one or more truck assemblies including a plurality of specially designed wheels for traveling along a vast infrastructure of railway tracks. Braking systems are generally disposed between adjacent pairs of wheels for facilitating the stopping or slowing down of the railway car.
A braking system can generally include front and rear brake assemblies, each including a pair of brake heads with brake pads for contact with an outer periphery of the wheels when the front and rear brake assemblies are moved away from one another. Commonly, an air cylinder is provided in the braking system for generating the force that causes such movement. The air cylinder or another actuator causes movement of a linkage system which is connected to and causes movement of the front and rear brake assemblies.
Many braking systems further include assemblies conventionally known as slack adjusters for adjusting the movement of the front and rear brake assemblies as required. In particular, slack adjusters compensate for brake pad wear by adjusting the movement of the front and rear brake assemblies based on changes in the distance that the brake heads must travel to contact the wheels. Typically, a slack adjuster is built into one of the rods in the linkage system. For example, such linkage systems can include two movable rods, one of which can include a slack adjuster, and two movable levers.
Improvements in slack adjuster and brake assembly design generally are, however, desired in the art. For example, improvements in the force transmission capabilities, robustness, and overall weight of brake assembly designs are generally desired.